Chernobyl Death Toll Hits 25

18,000 Treated For Stress After Meltdown, Soviets Say

MOSCOW — The death toll from the April 26 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has risen to 25, Soviet physicians said Tuesday.

Another 30 remain in critical condition from exposure to radiation, the doctors said.

Dr. Yevgeny Chazov said 23 people have died from radiation. Two other people were killed in the initial explosion and fire at the Ukrainian power plant.

Chazov, a deputy health minister, was speaking at a press conference called by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, of which he is a cofounder.

The organization was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

In the days after the explosion, described by experts as the world`s worst nuclear accident, 18,000 were hospitalized with symptoms ranging from headaches to blood and respiratory problems, said Dr. Leonid Ilyin, director of a Moscow hospital where some of the injured are being treated.

Those 18,000 were released after a few days when doctors determined they were not suffering from radiation sickness but from stress.

``We wanted to examine any symptoms . . . and wanted to check everyone who was complaining,`` Ilyin said. ``None of the 18,000 had problems.``

Ilyin, director of the Soviet Institute of Biophysics, said 30 patients out of the 299 who were hospitalized for radiation exposure remain in critical condition.

Eighty-nine of the 299, though, have been released, he said.

The doctor estimated that 100,000 people, most of them evacuees from towns near the power plant, were examined after the accident.

Also Tuesday, the Communist Party daily Pravda complained of poor conditions for many of the 92,000 people who were evacuated from the 19-mile danger zone around the plant.

The newspaper also reported that several hundred evacuees will return home soon, although those who lives closest to the reactor will be allowed back into the area no sooner than this fall.

Pravda urged assistance for evacuees, who face long lines to purchase food and other necessities.

The newspaper also printed a list of complaints about the failings of the Ministry of Energy to improve temporary living conditions for evacuees and clean-up crews.

Quoted were local officials who said, ``The lack of attention by the Ministry of Energy to questions of habitation, services and feeding of people very much interferes with things.``

Pravda also gave information about crop rotations ordered for fields near the crippled power plant, including the sowing of long-life grasses.

Agricultural experts said the report indicates that some fields have been deemed too ``hot`` with radiation for produce to be planted for the next harvest.

In central Moscow, a photographic display from the Chernobyl region opened in the offices of Izvestia, the government newspaper.

The window display of about a dozen photographs was drawing steady crowds throughout the morning.

Only one of the photos depicts damage at the nuclear power plant. Many show crews decontaminating the area or checking for radiation. Other photographs show a stork nesting atop a power line and a maternity ward at a Chernobyl-area hospital.